Some Skittles and a shillelagh please

Every time an obstacle is cleared, it brings new challenges. This, of course, applies to all of life. It would be possible to wax poetic or philosophically on this for ages. There are all sorts of different ways of phrasing this to make it sound all fancy pants. You can use the standard, "it is what it is," which is pretty bare bones. You can talk about how the trials and fires that we face are like a refiner burning out the impurities in precious metals. You can go on about how it is weights and resistance that build up all of our being and not just our muscles. When it comes down to it though, it can be summed up with this...

You thought that you had a victory, but things still suck....and maybe more than they did before.

We had spent over a year working toward that day last week when Lloyd was transferred from Bravo battery to Charlie. It represented a major victory for us. Sure, we knew that it wasn't going to be this celebration in the land of rainbows, leprechauns, and unicorns that crap Skittles. Still, we expected that there would be some sort of improvement in the situation. If nothing else, being in Charlie means being with only people who are being discharged and not being lumped with the folks in FTU (the "fat kids camp" for people who are not injured but need to work on running, push ups, and sit ups because they too out of shape to pass their PT test). It should at least be a little better.....right? Or not. In the week that he has been at Charlie, Lloyd has been finding that now more than ever, he has no time to get any of his stuff done. He gets his hopes up on stuff, and then someone pisses in his Cheerios. He hasn't been able to call home in the evenings, and he's really getting tired of the Blue Falcons that are all around him. (Maybe it's a good thing that there are no leprechauns there - Lloyd might steal their shillelaghs to bludgeon some idiot Blue Falcon.)  It's been pretty frustrating and discouraging for him, and it's been wearing on him heavily. (Not just him either.)

The only glimmer that we have on the horizon right now is that Ms Gibbs is working on getting Lloyd's packet (his piles and piles of paperwork) ready to send to the medical review board. Right now, she's working on getting all of the doctors who have reports in it to sign off on the packet as a whole. (Not only do the doctors have to agree on what they as individuals write in it, they have to agree that there is nothing wrong with any of the stuff in it. Minor red tape in the grand scheme of it all. Hopefully. At least Ms Gibbs seems more inclined to do her job and get the stuff done than Miss Maria was.) As soon as it's all set and sent to San Antonio for the review board, praying without ceasing that we will be in agreement with their findings.

We appreciate all of your prayers. Right now, our specific requests would be for restful sleep for us both (since everything seems worse when you're exhausted), the ability to be productive and accomplish our goals (and not just finish the tasks that others assign us), and for the doctors make signing off on Lloyd's packet a priority.

God Bless!